Obscurity
by SystemSock
Summary: Zed's path is one of darkness and shadow. A path that he walks alone. Or so he thought. Can he really control the shadows within, or will he succumb to the darkness? She is the only thing in the Dark he sees. About Zed's life before the league and leading up to it and how he left the Kinkou. Rated M just in-case.
1. Braving the Shadows

**A/N First fanfic, I've been meaning to write one for a long time. If I decide to continue this, updates will probably be sporadic and random. I will try to be as consistent as possible to the personalities of the characters. (I hate OOC-ness)**

**If you have read Zed's lore, this is the part where he and his students seize the order of the Kinkou.**

**Enjoy**

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><p><strong> Braving the Shadows<strong>

Zed removed his mask, revealing his narrow and pointed facial features, a trait common of most Ionians. Uncommon to most Ionians, however, were his blazing red eyes. Eyes that now fell upon the old man seated in front of him. Grey hair fell to small shoulders that sagged, tinged with sadness and regret. Despite his frail form, he still emanated an air of authority and respect among his students. This was something that did not extend to the master of shadows standing before him.

"I have failed you as a master." The master of the Kinkou sat calmly,with Zed soundlessly looming over him. He gazed up at Zed with sorrowful eyes. He had lead Zed to the inner sanctum's of the temple, where the master of Shadows knew the box was being kept. He needed that box, to further his gains in the way of the shadow. The last time he had opened it, all those years ago, he had gotten a mere glimpse of the powers and secrets within. The shadows had touched his mind, sharing with him age-old secrets long forgotten. He craved the power held within it.

"I made a mistake, banishing you was not the right thing to do. It only served to push you further down the path of darkness."

"I have failed you as master," he repeated. "I have failed you as a mentor. And I have failed you as a father-"

"You are _not _my father," Zed interrupted. The venom and anger in his voice was palpable. "I have no father" he continued. The hurt in master Shujin eyes was evident after hearing those words. It may be true, that Zed was indeed an orphan, but he had always considered Zed a son of his. Regardless of Zed's feelings towards him, he knew he had to push that aside, and try to steer Zed away from the path he so dangerously walked.

He sighed. "I understand why you may feel that way, but that is not why we are here. You are here because of this," The old man seemingly materialized the box out of thin air, and into his hands. "The path of shadows is a forbidden path, one that has not been walked in many centuries, for very good reasons. "

"I do not care for those reasons. Give me that box," Zed growled, unsheathing his blades as he did so.

He lunged forwards aiming his wrist-blades at his former-master's throat - and would've hit his target too, if Shujin was still remaining where he sat. He had seen the attack coming and had effortlessly moved out of the way at a surprising speed for a man of his age. He stood now, a few paces opposite Zed, the box still in his hands.

"Just listen to what I have to say," The master continued.

"The shadows have not strengthened you, they have corrupted your mind. Your lust for power, it is an addiction. A hunger that cannot be sated. But is not too late." Shujin gestured to the box, "Destroy it. End all this and lead your followers back to the path of balance. You will be welcomed back into the Kinkou. You can return to your brethren."

It was tempting. It had been years since he had seen Shen, since he had seen _Akali. _He felt an ache in his chest at the thought of the dark-haired ninja. It would be so easy, to fall back into his old life. He looked at the Kinkou master and saw him watching Zed hopefully. Clearly, he could see Zed's conflict written all over his face.

"I-I will destroy it," He said hesitantly . The master managed a small, encouraging smile and outstretched his arms, holding the box just before Zed. The master of shadows unsheathed his blades, mentally preparing himself. He raised his arm up, preparing to slice through the box downwards, when he suddenly realized the implications of what he was about to do. _To turn back now, would be weak. _He thought. _I will not return to the false teachings of balance!_

Instead of slashing through the box, he brought his blades down in arc in front of him that brought them tearing through the master's wrists, severing the tendons and bones that attached his hands to his arms. He yelled in pain, dropping the box at Zed's feet.

Picking it up, Zed opened the box and instantly felt darkness enter his mind, enter his _body. _It was an intoxicating, exhilarating yet terrifying feeling that threatened to make him black out. The feeling progressed until he felt as if he were being consumed by shadow. It was unbearably painful. He screamed in agony, certain that anyone of his students outside would of heard him. He didn't care at that particular moment. Unable to cope anymore, he collapsed to the ground, dropping the box as he did so and ending his painful ordeal as soon as he let go of the box. He was unconscious for a few minutes and awoke dazed and disoriented. He felt warm liquid dripping down his chin. Raising his hand to his face, he was surprised to find a freshly opened cut running diagonally across his face. His memory of the events that just took place were hazy, but he was certain nothing had attacked him.

Taking a deep breath, he steeled his nerves. Already he felt stronger, faster. The knowledge, the power he had sought after for so long, _it was his._ It had worked. But at what price? He still felt a dull throbbing at the back of his head as he shakily stood up.

As he did so, he noticed a shadow of him, standing parallel to him and copying his every movement perfectly. It looked to be composed of pure smoke and darkness. Zed smiled to himself. _Finally _he thought.

Briefly, Zed thought he heard laughter in the recess of his mind. Scared, but not deterred, he shook it off and turned to his master, who sat slumped against the wall, his breath ragged as he slowly bled to death. The shadow moved, of its own accord, towards Shujin and dragged its wispy blade across the master's neck, severing his head from his body before disappearing. Zed was shocked. _It has a mind of its own_ . Again he heard the faint laughter and the throbbing in his head increased even more. He was beginning to question his decisions. Would he be able to control it? _What have I done? _Again, he shook off his doubt and replaced it with steely resolve.

He knew what he needed to do next. Picking up Shujin's head, he walked into the courtyard where his followers and a few Kinkou had gathered. He swept his gaze across the room, stopping as he met a familiar gaze.

Shen

His face was a concealed mask, betraying none of the emotion he felt, but Zed had a pretty good guess. Stormy gray eyes glared at glowing red ones through his mask. Zed threw the Kinkou master's head at Shen's' feet. Even then, Shen didn't blink, didn't even glance as the head of his master, the head of his _father _rolled at his feet. However, his face noticeably twitched, the only sign betraying his true emotions, his anger. Zed felt grimly satisfied at that.

"Slaughter them all." Zed yelled to his followers. "The temple is ours!"

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><p><strong>And the rest is history<strong>

**A/N: Thoughts? Not exactly sure where I want to go with this, more to come though! I would love some feedback, thanks for reading. **


	2. Bloodshed

**So here's chapter 2. Enjoy, please leave a review or comment or whatever. :)**

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><p><strong>Bloodshed<strong>

Moonlight lit the stone tiles of the courtyard, painting the area in beautiful tones of silvery white. The elegance of the scene, however, was lost upon those who stood in it.

His students had trained well, they were prepared for this moment. As soon as Zed had given the command, they sprung into action. The courtyard erupted into chaos and violence. Zed just stood and watched the bloodshed, content with merely spectating. He knew his presence was not needed, the Kinkou were hopelessly outmatched and out manned.

He had no intention of joining the fight, that is, until a familiar _ninjato _lodged itself in his shoulder. He yanked it out immediately, wincing in pain he looked up to see Shen standing before him. The Eye of twilight kicked Zed square in the chest, sending him backwards a few paces. He then followed up with a punch to the side of Zed's head. Already off-balance, Zed was floored by the blow. Despite Zed's armor, Shen's blow had still hurt tremendously.

Shen was strong, more so than when they last fought.

But so was he.

Zed spawned a shadow behind Shen and immediately swapped places with it. Utilizing the element of surprise, he removed one of the shuriken attached to his back, and flung it at Shen. His shadow mirrored his attack perfectly, and while Shen managed to block the shadows shuriken, Zed's shuriken hit its mark in Shen's lower back. Due to Shen's thick armor, the shuriken failed to impaled itself properly in his flesh, causing only a shallow wound. It bounced and fell to the ground. The tip of it glistened with a dark crimson sheen.

Shen turned around and aimed a vicious downwards slash at Zed's midsection, who intercepted the blade with his own. The force of the blow reverberated in his bones, causing pain to shoot down the length's of his arm, but Zed ignored it. Stepping closer to Shen, he elbowed him in the face and then shouldered him as a follow up. By putting his full weight and force into it he managed to put the grey-eyed ninja off-balance.

He saw his opportunity.

His shadow was still standing behind Shen. Zed willed it to perform a low spinning-kick, sweeping Shen's legs from underneath him. As his opponent fell backwards onto the floor, Zed pulled his arm back, opening his palm as he did so, before smashing his hand into Shen's nose.

A distinct _crack_ was heard. Zed smiled in cruel satisfaction as he watched blood gush from Shen's ruined nose. He raised his arm to repeat the motion once more, raining down drops of blood onto Shen's dark blue armor as he did so. This time, he formed a fist, and just before he could make contact with Shen's nose a second time, the blue ninja abruptly sat up and caught his wrist. Twisting it viciously, he shoved Zed away from him and stood up. Without even pausing to lift a hand to his definitely broken nose, he lunged at Zed once more.

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><p>They fought for what felt like hours, but both knew it couldn't of been more than half an hour. The fight had oscillated between the two. One moment, it seemed that Zed had gained the advantage, landing a vicious kick to Shen's abdomen and knocking the wind out of him. But, in the next, Shen clearly had the edge over him as he landed blow after blow on the side of Shen's head.<p>

The two stood now, opposite each other, panting and gasping for air. The fighting around them had moved away from the courtyard, as Zed's students had chased the fleeing Kinkou. They were now the only two who remained in the courtyard.

Zed's mask now lay on the ground, after getting knocked off by a particularly brutal uppercut. Both were covered in bruises, cuts and the like. Neither had managed to get the better of the other, causing Zed's frustration to rise. Even now, he still could not beat Shen.

"Why," It wasn't a question, but a statement, as if he already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask. "Why did you come? Why have you betrayed us so?"

"_I _was the one who was betrayed!" Came Zed's spiteful reply. "_I _was the one who was banished. _I _was the one who was forced to spend so many lonely nights out in the cold. Do not talk to me of betrayal, Shen, for I have bared the worst of it."

Zed couldn't stop himself from trembling with anger as he remembered the most difficult years of his life. With nowhere to go and no money, he was forced to steal just to get by. Of course, armed with the few shadow techniques he knew at the time, this was an easy feat. But being reduced to nothing but a petty thief was shameful for a ninja, banished or not. Still, with no bed and no place to call home, he had spent far too many nights in the open, vulnerable to the merciless Ionian weather, among other things. He had struggled to get by.

"You know that wasn't my decision to make, I could do nothing to stop it." Came Shen's cool reply, his face stoic and impassive, as always.

"You didn't even try! I do not recall you speaking up in my defense."

"It matters not now, what's done is done."

Zed felt himself bristling at the callous way Shen changed the subject.

"If anything you brought this upon yourself. Nonetheless, the fact remains, you abandoned us. You abandoned _her_, even."

Zed's eyes blazed with unconcealed fury after hearing Shen's words. He took a threatening step forwards.

Shen sighed as he looked at him. He was tired of fighting, and he knew he should be elsewhere, helping the surviving Kinkou to escape.

"This is enough for now, I fear my fellow ninja need me. Until our paths cross again, Zed." Shen pressed his palms together, muttering something inconceivable as he was surrounded by a purple glow.

"This isn't over!" Zed yelled as he aimed a fist at the Eye of Twilight, but it was too late, the ninja was already gone.

Sighing as he did so, Zed moved to go and pick up his mask and was startled when he saw a pair of brown eyes staring back at him from the other end of the clearing. He felt his heart rate suddenly begin to quicken.

_"Akali"_


	3. Penumbra

**Chapter 3, tried to make this a bit longer, as I felt the first two were too short. I will also try making future chapters longer. Enjoy, please comment or review or whatever. :)**

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><p><strong>Penumbra<strong>

_3 years earlier_

In the midst of the Noxian invasion, Ionia was thrown into a state of chaos. Ionia was a place of spiritual evolution and enlightenment, not of conflict. But when Noxus landed on their shores, wielding great-swords large enough to cleave a person in two and carting nightmarish weapons of biochemical terror, they had no choice but to amass what military they had and fight back. It was a long and bloody conflict - one that threw the entire city-state into a state of hardship and despair.

It was within this desperation, that Zed had begun to find like-minded individuals. Individuals who realized, that their pursuit of enlightenment, their delusions about balance made them inconceivably weak. Only then were they willing to cast off the restraints that were their beliefs in equillibria. Of course, he had encountered such people before the invasion, but they were few and far between. It was this desperation, that helped spark the growth of the Order of the Shadows.

Zed stood, in front of the dozen or so individuals gathered before him, in what was the remains of an abandoned dojo. The surrounding village had been overcome by Noxian forces, and all its inhabitants had been laid to waste. The Noxians were long gone, having moved further inland with the rest of the invasion. Other Ionians saw it as a travesty, Zed saw it as an opportunity. Various holes littered the walls of the dojo, letting in a sharp, icy wind that cut at his exposed skin, like a fine dagger. It was less than satisfactory, but it would suffice. He had made do with worse than this before.

Looking around, he studied the weary gazes and jaded expressions of the followers he had managed to assemble over the last months. He empathized with the bleak despair he saw mirrored in each of them. He had felt it once too. But with time, that despair had turned to anger and bitterness, which he used to fuel new ambition.

Dark, determined ambition.

"Pair up," he said. "Begin sparring."

As they did so, Zed realized there was an odd number of them. He would have to spar with one of the students. A female student, the only girl of the group. He silently approached and gestured for her get into a fighting stance. Her dark wavy hair fell to the small of her back, tied in a long ponytail, while two locks of her hair swathed down the sides of her face, contrasting with her pale, flawless skin. She wore a green bodice that accentuated her curves perfectly and was skin-tight, so as not to restrict her movement in combat. A matching green mask, covered Zed couldn't help but admire her beauty for a brief moment, before forcing those thoughts aside. Zed hadn't remembered seeing her before, having only joined the night before, yet at the same time he felt a sliver of recognition as he looked upon her.

"What is your name?" He asked.

"Akali," Came her response. The name rang with familiarity. _Akali. _He decided he would dwell on that later. She regarded him silently, awaiting his next instruction.

After taking a moment to observe her stance, he took a step back to stand opposite her. He raised his fists and angled his body away from her, adopting his own perfect guard stance.

"Let us begin." Zed barely gave her time to register his words before he charged, aiming his fist at her exposed gut.

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><p><em>Present<em>

She hadn't been in the courtyard, when Zed and his ninja arrived at the order. She and Kennen had been in the training hall, leading a training session for the young Kinkou. Their session was abruptly cut short when several ninja of Zed's order burst into the room, silencing the surprised cries of the youths as they willed their shadows forward, slicing their throats. Akali had seen red as she mercilessly cut them down, one by one.

Sprinting out of the hall, she threw herself into the onslaught, cleaving a path for herself towards where most of the conflict was centered about. It appeared she had arrived too late, however. Numerous ninja, both friend and foe, lay on the ground in slowly expanding pools of blood as the remaining Kinkou desperately tried to fend off the attackers on the back foot.

They were slowly being forced out of there own home. They found themselves in one of the Kinkou's sanctuaries. What was once the Order's peaceful garden was now in turmoil. The stone pathways were cracked and disordered and the once-beautiful grass was now stained a deep crimson.

As the fighting continued, one thing became evident; they could not hope to win. Both sides had suffered losses, but the Kinkou were still outnumbered at least two to one. In a last resort, Akali drew a smoke bomb and threw it at the ground, a few feet in front of her. Using the distraction and confusion of the smoke, she urged the remaining Kinkou to put as much distance between them and here as they could. A cowardly option, but at the time it seemed the only option, lest they all be killed.

As the ninja recovered from the disorientation caused by the smoke, they began to chase after the fleeing Kinkou. Akali silently watched them run off into the distance from behind a wall before slinking off to locate Kennen and Shen; she had to see if they were safe.

She ran through the vicinity, calling out their names as she did so. After hearing no response for a good ten minutes, she began to fear the worst. She dreaded that they may be among the dozens of bodies that littered the grounds of Kinkou's precinct.

Another ten minutes went by without a sign of either of them. She did, however encounter a few patrols of Zed's ninja, searching for any survivors or stragglers and taking them prisoner or executing them. Mostly the latter. The young-lings would be spared, but not for reasons of compassion or mercy. Children, due to their youth, are impressionable and easily influenced and for this, they were valued. They were spared in the hopes that they would accept their teachings and become a new member of the Order of Shadows, aiding their growth and expansion. If they refused this, which they most probably would, than they would be shown as much mercy as the rest of the Kinkou.

Akali knew this because she had witnessed it first-hand, she had once been a naive student of the Order of Shadows. It was years ago, but it still felt fresh in her mind. She wasn't proud of the things she used to be willing to do, the things she had done for the order. The things she had done for Zed. At the thought of him, she felt a shiver run down her spine. She was not entirely sure why, or what she felt towards him. He was responsible for the death, the carnage that surrounded her. Still, the notion that she might encounter him made her quiver in anticipation.

She was not sure what exactly had motivated her to deviate from the Kinkou in the first place. She was even more unsure about why she had stayed with the Order for so long. She told herself she had grown sick of the Kinkou's stifling beliefs, that she reveled in the unbridled strength and power the Order of Shadows offered. But she knew that was just not the case. Try as she might, she had been unable to bring herself to hate the Kinkou as fervently as Zed and the order did. There had been another reason why Akali had stayed with the order.

The cool night breeze ruffled her hair, it's calmness a stark contrast to the raging storm of emotions she felt inside.

Without thinking, she allowed her feet to carry her forward as she was lost in thought. Time and time again she had found that her mind had drifted to thoughts of Zed, and she struggled to keep him from her mind. She knew she should hate him, so then why couldn't she?

She looked up when a familiar purple light shone not far ahead of her, illuminating the night sky in tones of deep violet and signifying the departure of the Eye of Twilight. Before she could even wonder what it was that he had been doing here, she caught sight of another figure, who had his back facing her. Despite being turned away from her, Akali knew who it was. There was no mistaking the broad shoulders, adorned with metal pauldrons that gleamed silver in the darkness, or the distinctive two-pronged blades that sprouted from either wrist.

As he knelt down to retrieve his helmet, she got a good look at his face. He was freshly scarred, and dried blood marked his face. Akali couldn't help but think he still looked as handsome as ever despite it. As he rose from the ground, he turned slightly and finally noticed her standing there.

She was rendered unable to think, to_ breathe _as she gazed into crimson eyes, which now only glowed a dull, gentle red. She opened her mouth, as if to speak, but found she was unable to form words as her breath hitched in her throat. She grew increasingly frustrated at herself. She was behaving like a teenager!

"Akali." Zed's voice cut through the silence of the clearing, jarring Akali from her stupor and reigniting the burning conflict she felt within.

Eventually one emotion prevailed above the other clashing feelings she felt. Anger. Rage boiled within her when she noticed the blood staining his blades, as she came to the realization that they were stained with blood of her comrades.

Almost without thought, she removed her kamas from their holster and held them idly in her hands. Sparing no second thoughts, she flung them at Zed, giving him no time to react as she dashed after them.

It was going to be a long night for Zed.

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><p><strong>That took forever to write, idek why. Please review, would love to hear feedback, thanks for reading! :)<strong>


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